A Heart Made of Nuts and Bolts
by VulcanComander
Summary: John Watson, a mechanic returning from war, meets 543R10C-K (Sherlock), a rusty android that may know something about the true origins of the Event War. As the pair investigate the conspiracy, an unlikely bond forms between the man and the robot. What is he hiding? What secrets does he hold? Can simple friendship develop into something more? T to be safe.
1. John Meets the Tin Man

John Watson strolled along the bitter winter streets of London, carrying a rusty tool box in tow. He wiped his grimy hands across his brow, smearing soot on his forehead as he tried to remove the film of sweat which had developed. He then swept his hand on his equally dusty wife-beater shirt which lay beneath a dirty wool coat- he preferred the name "a-shirt", since it _was_ the proper name for the garment and it was _so_ much less violent. His entire body was filthy, and his shirt, coat, torn navy-blue jumpsuit and scuffed black work boots had a film of grease on them.

The sun had just begun to kiss the small hills in the horizon, hiding behind the buildings and causing a golden blanket of light to cover the streets of the English city. The cold months of winter had already started to creep up upon the country, and even though it was only the third of October, the bitter air smelled strongly of the snow to come.

John walked through the streets, glancing at the little trinkets on display in the store fronts that he passed- a hover train, a small android doll that looked displeased with the holiday witch costume it was draped in, and a variety of robotic pets. He shook his head whenever he passed the latter when he noticed all the mechanical weaknesses in the toy, and knew that it wouldn't last a week- especially with children. 'At least they'll need someone to fix the bloody thing...might come to me. God, I need the pay', he thought worriedly. John Watson is a mechanic, and a very good one. Still, no one seemed to want to pay for his affordable services.

He used to be in the military and fought in the Event War until a year ago, when he was wounded. The Event War still rages on, and in the distance, red and black puffs of smoke rise into the air...the colors of war and death. The War started about a decade ago when a large technology corporation, Talus - a widely successful company responsible for the production of robotic soldiers- lost control of its fighters. Of course, it was a good idea to have robots take the place of soldiers at the time. Innocent people didn't have to face the horrors of war. Innocent people did not have to die. People on both sides of a conflict did not have to be killed at the hands of a man or woman ordered to war by politicians who have never _seen_ the terror of a battlefield. Robots were not conscious beings. They were a collection of adequately assembled nuts and bolts animated by programming. If one was lost to war, it would not have any serious repercussions. Best of all, human beings would no longer have to be used as pawns.

Things went well for a time. There were no wars for a while, and the Eventrons- the robots needed in the _event_ of a war- were dually programmed for housework, and were bought by people who needed cheap maids and house-cleaners. John had even bought one for he and his wife so it could clean the house which would have otherwise been left dirty when they came home from work, too tired to do housework. There must have been a glitch in their systems, however, because most of the Eventrons had went out of control. They killed people-brutally murdered entire families and painted the walls with their blood-burned properties down to cinders, or harassed onlookers. People panicked, and a movement was made to recollect and destroy the Eventrons. Robots- even androids- had all been recalled and destroyed after people grew too terrified of the automatons. Those who escaped the disassemblement procedure relocated to the valleys out of the city. Somehow, they rebuilt themselves and multiplied their forces. War ensued, and Britain's forces were getting destroyed by the Eventrons. Still, Parliament was relentless with its orders to continue sending drafted citizens into the bloodbath. It took two or three men to overcome an Eventron; it had increased strength, increased stamina, increased speed, and an increased pattern-recognition process.

John's mind drifted back to the War, the single most terrifying times of his life. When he had gotten his draft letter, Mary was reduced to hysteric tears. He thought he would die as soon as he stepped foot on the blood-soaked dirt of the war zone, but did his best to comfort his wife, who had only escaped the draft because she was pregnant with their first child. The last few nights before his deployment were silent and discomforting, and they both expected, though neither of them dared say it aloud in fear of petrifying the other, that they would never see each other again. But the war was worse than John imagined it would be-and he imagined he would be _dead_ in a moment. Bodies scattered the floor, some were skinned and others had their limbs torn off of them. The earth had taken on the reddish hue of their blood which had been seeping into the ground when left unattended. If the stench of rotting death became too much to bear, the bodies would be burned. Their ashes, along with the smoke from various explosions, mixed in the air and created a black cloud of macabre conditions, blocking out the sun almost entirely.

Still, he was willing to fight- not for the _cause_ , not for the _government_ , not even for _himself_ , but for _his family_. John often wrote to his wife about how he would be damned if he would allow his baby to grow up in constant terror that one night, a killing machine would break into their house and terminate them all. And so he fought, every day of his miserable life for the entirety of four months, until he was shot in the thigh and sent back home so he could heal and return to the battlefield. It was a miracle he had lived for as long as he had, and the four months felt like a year. He returned home, after nearly bleeding out and being told that it would be unsafe for him to return to the battlefield (apparently the government had no quarrel with sending people out to die, but felt guilty about being the direct cause of their death), he discovered that his wife had miscarried. They had not thought of a name beforehand, so they hastily decided on Erin, meaning peace, for the times that would soon hopefully come. Now poor and unable to afford a nice ceremony, they buried the boy in a cheap plot in the nearest cemetery alone. No one else stood by their side. They were too busy burying their own children nearby.

In order to try to make ends meet, John gained ownership of a mechanics shop- a gift from his friend who he met in the war and who died in his arms. People occasionally dropped off their hover cars and a variety of mechanical utilities in their houses. Mary took on a job as a nurse in a local hospital. Many of her patients were wounded from the war, whom she helped to heal before they were sent right back into the fighting. Still, they could barely afford things since the country went into a moderate economic depression, leaving many citizens trembling in small shack-like homes until the Eventrons are defeated.

John would soon arrive at one of the nicer of those shacks, where his wife would later arrive and they would eat their dinner of cabbage stew and bread. He passed an alley where he heard cats meowing and hissing at each other, probably for the last of their scavenged food. Suddenly, a groan escaped from the darkness, followed by the crashing of trash bins and the clash of metal. John stopped promptly in his tracks and glanced down the alleyway.

 _"_ Erm...are you alright?" he called. When no immediate reply came, he peered around for anyone who might help but found none, so he cautiously started to head towards the groan he had heard. 'Hope it's not more teenagers getting it on again', he thought to himself. He felt his way down the shadowy passage, tripping over discarded boxes from the stores on either side and shoving away a cat who had begun to claw at him.

"Is anyone here?" John asked. A muffled gasp and the scuffling of metal on the pavement was heard, and John realized that someone was trying to walk away from him. He picked up his pace, worried that the person was in need of help but was scared.

"Don't move, I won't hurt you, I'm trying to help. Are you hurt?"

John arrived at the end of the long alley, and no one was found. He looked into the blinding sunset and shaded his eyes from the light before glancing around to see if anyone was running away, but saw no one. Defeated, John began to return to where he had entered. Then came the _CLINK CLINK CLINK_ of a bolt bouncing onto the ground. John spun around in time to see a beam of sun shine off the tarnished head of a caramel-colored android.


	2. John Brings the Tin Man Home

The android had frozen in his place- hiding behind a large cardboard box of Chinese fortune cookies and slyly reaching out to try to retrieve his lost bolt- and stared at John. His leg had nearly fallen off and he was banged up in many places. John stood in bewilderment, and for a while, the pair just froze and stared. The android, finally coming to his senses and realizing that John was too surprised to hurt him, picked up his missing bolt and ran out of the corridor into the twilight air. John, noticing what had happened, ran limping after him. 'The Ministry of Defense will pay good money to get him back and terminated...they might pay better, though, if he wasn't so banged up,'he planned.

He chased the robot through the nearly-empty streets as most residents went into their homes an hour before curfew and towards John's home, where people did not tend to pay much attention to anything that did not involve them. Neither the android nor John ran in a particularly hurried method, as they were both hindered by some injury. The android was hindered by his unoiled joints which made screeches that tore through the air and John limped after him and, when he was finally close enough, flung himself towards the robot. The android tried to fight back and shoved John away. He staggered backwards and the android took the chance to crawl away, but John fell onto his mechanical foot. The android kicked him in the jaw but John held on and strenuously climbed on top of him, rendering him unable to move.

"Would you _calm down?! I'm not trying to hurt you,"_ John lied, "I'm _trying_ to fix you." The android beneath him relaxed a bit in his struggle to be free. "I'm going to get off now, but you can't run, okay?" Without a response from the robot, John reluctantly crawled off him. The two were alone in the streets, for now.

"I do not require your assistance. You may leave," quipped the android forcefully. He was a tall model and loomed over John Watson by several inches. He must have been at least six feet tall and was implanted with black, beady eyes that did not match too well with the rest of his old, clunky caramel body. He was not given hair or a believable complexion, and looked like he did not get very far in personalization. He was dented and scuffed and he creaked whenever he moved a joint. Overall, he looked like a glamorous, golden soup can with a male appearance.

John looked over his appearance and insisted, "You look rather beaten up. I can't just let you go. Whatever it is you're running from, you won't get far from it if you're creaking and dented". The android looked at him with empty eyes and nodded slightly.

"Very well. Heal me. Be quick," he ordered.

"Aren't I supposed to be the one giving _you_ orders?"

"Try it. You would not get far in that endeavor".

John lifted himself off the floor and motioned with his hand for him to follow. He had gotten a few yards out when he glanced behind him, just to be sure that he had not run off again. There, sitting where he had been left, was the android. John groaned and walked back over to him.

"What's the matter?" he asked irritably. The android sat quietly for a moment before stating, _"_ I am unable to stand". John chuckled to himself and looked up at the darkening sky.

"Need my help now, do you?"

"You will bring me to my feet."

John sighed as he, with great difficulty, brought the heavy android to his feet. "C'mon. This way, " John muttered. He started to think that this hunk of metal was not worth whatever he would get for turning him in.

"Where are we going?" the android asked in his robotic voice that was intermingled with the voice of a man. It was a unique voice, not entirely mechanic like most of the robots John had come across, yet not fully human. It was unique, but not soothing at all.

"Home," whispered John.

" _Your_ home?"

"Yes."

"Where do you live?"

"Nearby. It's not a very nice house. It's simple. Just a step up from those hovels the other soldiers live in. What a thanks, isn't it? 'Thank you for almost dying for this country, we really appreciate it, but now isn't the time for congratulations. Please live in this bloody _shack_ until we get things in order, won't you? Ta..." John mimicked bitterly.

The robot was silent for a few minutes, pondering. "You were in the war?" he asked hesitantly. He knew how _fickle_ humans were with their emotions, and this seemed like a sensitive topic. The man nodded. "By choice?" he asked.

"NO, of _course not._ 'By choice,'" he scoffed. "No one goes to the Event War by choice. At first, maybe. At first they might have thought they stood a chance against those machines. But they _didn't_ and they were all slaughtered. I went because I knew that if you didn't go willingly, they would hold you down, strap a bag onto you, stick a gun in your hands and kick you off by force. If you went willingly, it took you less time to come to terms with your death. Look, over there," he said somberly, pointing into the distance where the red and black clouds of the Event War, "That's the War. I went in there a dead man. I came out a miracle."

"It is a good thing that you are alive," stated the android. John hung his head low and quickened his pace. "Sometimes I wish I wasn't."

They walked the remainder of their journey in silence- the android was pleased with the silence and was grateful that he did not have to hear John's voice while John lamented over Erin and the times he felt him kick. He had always thought he would make a good father. Now he would never know.

Finally, the duo arrived at John's cabin. It was small and wooden, save for the thin sheet of metal which acted as a makeshift roof since their last roof collapsed. It's outer walls were painted white, but it had started to chip and needed a new paint job. The house had five windows, one floor and a basement, from what the android could ascertain from the outside. John, relieved to finally be home, opened the door a bit too excitedly, and it broke off one of its hinges and tilted. John groaned and made plans to fix it up tomorrow while the android entered his house, and he followed.

In the center room of the house, the living room, the android sat on a used torn pink couch and John pulled up a newly bought wooden stool and sat next to him with his toolbox. He made quick work of banging out his dents and evening out his texture. For his scuff marks, he glossed cooking oil over them and gently refinished the metal with an abrasive pad and then sandpaper. He reconnected the loosened electric works on his leg, which was barely still attached to the rest of his body, and screwed some extra silver metal on to close the open patches. Finally, he oiled the robot's hinges and his work was finished. As he wiped his greasy hands on a cloth towel, he asked his new acquaintance, "My name's John. What's your name?"

"I am 543R10C-K," he answered stoically.

"543R10C-K, is that right? Well, that isn't much of a name."

"Neither is 'John'."

"Yeah, well at least it's an _actual_ name, not a designation."

"I do not see the difference. A designation is given to you, as is a name."

"Names are given by people who love you. You were designated by the same company that made the Eventrons. I don't see much love coming out of there," he said harshly.

543R10C-K got on his feet and asked defensively, "What makes you think I was created there?"

"Weren't you?" asked John.

"No," insisted 543R10C-K, "I was not. I was constructed by Mr. Argall. I was built in his basement with parts from his mechanic shop, and -"

John interjected, " _Mr. Argall? Mr. Wallis Argall?_ The older Welsh fellow with a gap between his two front teeth and oily black hair?" 543R10C-K confirmed and asked if he knew him, and John explained that he was the man who gave him the mechanic shop when he was bleeding out in his arms and realized that he was not coming home.

After a moment of silence, 543R10C-K continued, "He only had time to construct my basic structure, the one you see, before he was drafted. He...promised to upgrade me with hair and the proper eyes when he returned. He never did."

"I'm sorry," soothed John, unsure of why he was condoling an emotionally-detached hunk of metal. 'Well, Wallis was his creator, almost like his father. Maybe...maybe he sees the logical connection of how he wouldn't be existing now if it weren't for Wallis,' John mused.

Mary called the two for dinner, and John motioned for 543R10C-K to follow. "You don't eat, but some company might be nice," offered John. The three sat around the old, circular table in the corner of the kitchen and John and Mary ate the cabbage stew in silence as the android watched. Mary's eyes shifted uncomfortably between John and 543R10C-K as she wondered why the android had to stay for dinner, especially when he was clearly escaping something.

"John tells me that it was quite a job getting hold of you," she muttered as John glanced at her, "He says you were running-trying to escape from him because you were frightened."

"Mary, that's enough. Whatever it is, he will be out of our house by tomorrow, so you won't have to worry about it," comforted John.

"No, John, I _do_ worry. What do you think you're _doing?_ Bringing a _robot-_ which you know are banned- into our house, fix him up, and let him sit with us at the dinner table? This is illegal, and we could both go to jail," she worried.

"At least in jail, we can have decent meals instead of _cabbage soup_ for a month. Mary, my love, no one saw us. We will be fine for another day. Please, Mary," he reached over the table to grasp her hand firmly in comfort, "I love you. I won't let anything happen to us." For the next few minutes, the married couple looked into each others' eyes, seemingly involved in a telepathic conference. 543R10C-K simply sat in his seat, entirely still, as he witnessed this act of love and caring, and pondered over them. He wondered if Mr. Argall loved him, although he was just a masterfully fashioned pile of mechanic rubbish. He certainly was grateful for his maker, for if it were not for him, he would not be here with the Watsons. He wondered if he could love someone, but then quickly dismissed the notion. Loving someone means caring about what happens to them, and if he could feel sadness or happiness or whatnot, he would be distraught. No, no, 543R10C-K was glad that he did not love anyone. Caring would only get in the way of what he had to do.

"All right, all right. 543R10C-K, could you just tell Mary what you were running from?" He snapped out of his thoughts and back to his reality. With his chair up against the wall and John and Mary staring at him- John, tiredly, and Mary, distrustfully- 543R10C-K grew hesitant. "I-" he began, but was interrupted by a sudden violent rap at the unhinged door. John and Mary looked at each other uncertainly as they knew they were not expecting any visitors. 543R10C-K stared past John, not saying a word, with his expressionless face. John quickly rose out of his seat and made his way to the door. Mary and the android remained in the kitchen, and she picked nervously at her stew. 543R10C-K heard some mumbling, some words belonging to John, and the rest came from deeper, harsher voices.

"Mary!" John called nervously, "Some gentlemen are here. They're from the _Ministry of Defense Against Automatons."_


End file.
